


To Know The Earth And Heavens Above

by Syntax



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, I Tried, Introspection, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 18:05:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14774531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syntax/pseuds/Syntax
Summary: Allura isn't the only one who misses home.





	To Know The Earth And Heavens Above

**Author's Note:**

> i was working on he who invites for the first time in a year and a half, but then i spaced out and figured maybe i should take a break and write something else real quick since i still wanna write maybe a thing a day. dunno why today's thing is voltron when yesterday's was silent hill; i just had allura on the brain i guess.
> 
> this was supposed to be something really short that i wouldn't have to do research on.
> 
> it was not.
> 
> also haven't watched voltron since the season 1 finale so i have no idea how accurate any of this even is. just assume this takes place before then.

When Allura was young, she would wait all year for the juniberry flowers to bloom, and run out into the fields of them to play the moment she'd heard that the buds were starting to open. The flowers were rich and fragrant, filled with sweet seeds and gorgeous colors. She adored them. Even as she grew older, Allura would wait impatiently for the juniberries to bloom, making sure to free up her schedule as much as she could during the preceeding weeks so that she could have as much time as she wanted with the flowers.

It was her paradise. Her fondest memory of Altea—and her bitterest one. There were no more juniberries. There was no more Altea to grow them on. No more fields of sweet flowers, vibrant and wonderful, no more waiting until the first bloom of the year, no more frolicking around in the fields as only a happy child can. No more, and no one else but Coran who would ever know what it was like.

But.

Sometimes, when her longing for Altea is greatest, the paladins tell her about the fond memories of their world that they miss so much.

Lance would tell her about the beaches of Varadero. Of living close enough, but not quite, to a major city, far enough away that trips could only be made a few times a month, and were only worth making a few times a year. The smell of sea salt in the air as your toes dig into wet white sand, taking care not to step in anything lest by some errant tourist. Seeing the ocean stretch out before you, cobalt and blue and endless against the horizon on a hot summer day, watching your family play in the surf as you lie back and enjoy a melting ice cream cone.

Keith would tell her about Texas, about travelling, about the strange beauty of the desert at night. Finding a dark spot with his father when he was twelve years old, watching the sky open up more and more as they drove away from the city lights, feeling the chill desert air on his skin as he helped his father set up the telescope and saw the stars unimpeded for the first time. The empty land outside of the cities wasn't nearly as empty as it appeared during the day, and if you were lucky while looking out the windows you would see the creatures that share your neighborhood, share your stars, and realize that perhaps everything is connected.

Pidge would tell her not of a place, but a people. Sitting around a table surrounded by family, teasing and boasting and arguing and loving eachother, peeling potatoes with her brother as their grandmother cooked Sunday dinner and her aunts and uncles swapped stories of their visits or planned visits to the old country. Sharing food that you'd cooked yourself, playing with cousins you don't remember, sitting around rapt with attention as grandfather told stories while the grown ups did their drinking and smoking in another room. Your family is large enough that you don't remember anyone for long after they leave, but you shed real tears when they go all the same, hugging them tightly when they come back to you months and years later.

Hunk would tell her of White Sunday. Everyone in the community, most of whom he listed off by name, joining together to celebrate and affirm the glory of God, and honor the children that He has blessed them with. Helping the little ones with their preparations. Feeling the community pulse and buzz around you in excitement as the days come ever closer. Working on your own for weeks on end to get anything and anything just right, waking up bright and early to be scruffed and primmed and dressed in your best and seeing and feeling everything go more beautifully than you ever could've hoped for. Basking in the Sunday brunch, the post-service feast, the people everywhere, all around you, lifting you and your name up to the heavens in celebration.

Shiro—

Shiro doesn't tell her much about his life before the Garrison, before the Galra. Head trauma is a tricky thing, and he finds more than just his memories of Galra capture elude him. Instead, he tells her about the stars.

It's different looking up at the night sky now that you've been able to see it from only a few feet away. To a people like the Alteans who had posesses space travel for milennia before their end, the idea of looking up into the sky and not knowing what it might hold was as alien as the man telling her about it, as foreign as the idea of seeing the moon as anything other than a boring old moon or a galaxy or a nebula or a star as anything other than a fact of life. The pictures of planets and stars and space clouds that they'd recieved from their satellites and telescopes could never compare to the real thing, not when it's here and in front of you and you wonder how it could have ever been enough before.

He tells her that he is glad to be able to share the universe with her, and Allura finds that she is glad to be able to share it with him as well.

With all of them.


End file.
